During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies.

The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietnamese army in their victory in the war in 1975.

In 2017 Alex Last spoke to Le Van Lang, a Viet Cong veteran who helped construct the tunnels in the Cu Chi District, which is 20km north of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).

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(Photo: A former VietCong soldier in the tunnels in 1978. Credit: Jean-Claude LABBE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The Cu Chi tunnels of the Vietnam War

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